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The statistical production of antibaryons is considered within the canonical ensemble formulation. We demonstrate that the antibaryon suppression in small systems due to the exact baryon number conservation is rather different in the baryon-free (B=0) and baryon-rich (B>1) systems. At constant values of temperature and baryon density in the baryon-rich systems the density of the produced antibaryons is only weakly dependent on the size of the system. For realistic hadronization conditions this dependence appears to be close to B/(B+1) which is in agreement with the preliminary data of the NA49 Collaboration for the antiproton/pion ratio in nucleus-nucleus collisions at the CERN SPS energies. However, a consistent picture of antibaryon production within the statistical hadronization model has not yet been achieved. This is because the condition of constant hadronization temperature in the baryon-free systems leads to a contradiction with the data on the antiproton/pion ratio in e+e- interactions.
A recent paper on energy dependence of strangeness production in A+A and p+p interactions written by Dunlop and Ogilvie (Phys. ReV. C61 031901(R) (2000) indicates that there is a significant misunderstanding about the concept of strangeness enhancement and its role as a signal of Quark Gluon Plasma creation. In this comment we will try to clarify some essential points. 25.75.Dw, 13.85.Ni, 21.65.+f
Elliptic flow from nuclear collisions is a hadronic observable sensitive to the early stages of system evolution. We report first results on elliptic flow of charged particles at midrapidity in Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN)=130 GeV using the STAR TPC at RHIC. The elliptic flow signal, v_2, averaged over transverse momentum, reaches values of about 6% for relatively peripheral collisions and decreases for the more central collisions. This can be interpreted as the observation of a higher degree of thermalization than at lower collision energies. Pseudorapidity and transverse momentum dependence of elliptic flow are also presented.
We present the first measurement of fluctuations from event to event in the production of strange particles in collisions of heavy nuclei. The ratio of charged kaons to charged pions is determined for individual central Pb+Pb collisions. After accounting for the fluctuations due to detector resolution and finite number statistics we derive an upper limit on genuine non-statistical fluctuations, perhaps related to a first or second order QCD phase transition. Such fluctuations are shown to be very small.